City of Coventry's Adam Whitehead smashed the Commonwealth Games record last night.

And the dramatic performance put him in pole position for tonight's 100m breaststroke final.

The 200m bronze medallist from Kuala Lumpur suddenly became one of the 100m gold medal favourites in Manchester as English swimmers occupied the top three qualifying places.

Whitehead's semi-final time of 1min 1.05sec knocked almost half-a-second off the old Games record, held since 1990 by former Olympic champion Adrian Moorhouse.

It also lowered the Bulkington man's own personal best time by 0.67sec and was a similar amount ahead of England teammates Darren Mew and James Gibson, who came first and second in the other semi-final.

In fact the three Englishmen were the only swimmers to go under 1:02.

As he finished the race and news of the Games record flashed on the scoreboard, Whitehead looked around to see which of his rivals had broken it.

He looked stunned and incredulous when it was pointed out that it was him.

"I just can't believe that," he said. "I don't know where that came from at all, although since the trials I've done a lot of work on my 100 metres and that's where my speed has come from."

He added: "It's a real confidence boost for me. I have had some real ups and downs recently. The ups are real highs and the downs are real lows.

"But that was great and I'm really looking forward to the final."

Whitehead's time promotes him to third in the 2002 Commonwealth rankings behind Commonwealth record holder Gibson and Canada's Morgan Knabe, who goes fourth fastest into the final.

Knabe clocked only 1:02.00 in his semi-final but has swum more than a second quicker this year.

Australian Jim Piper could also be a threat along with the South African pair Brett Peterson and Terence Parkin.

Whitehead's Coventry club mate Michael Williamson, swimming for Northern Ireland, also survived the 100m breaststroke heats with a time of 1:04.70 before going out in the semi-finals, finishing 14th in 1:04.90.

After breaking the world record on Tuesday, England's Zoe Baker continued to dominate the 50m breast-stroke and was a clear winner in 30.60 seconds.